Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 25, 1990 TAG: 9004250477
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: VICTORIA RATCLIFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Carol Jarrell, 49-year-old clerk at the Hop-In store on Peters Creek Road, had testified at a preliminary hearing last month and identified Larry Dotson of Ordway Drive as one of two robbers.
Jarrell also identified Virginia R. Langhorne, 21, of 35th Street Northwest. Langhorne has a jury trial set May 8.
Asked by a defense attorney why she could identify the pair in court but not on the night of the robbery, Jarrell said, "My eyes don't have stars in front of them now."
Jarrell testified that she was working alone in the store across from the Department of Motor Vehicles office about 2 a.m. when a man entered the store and bought a pack of cigarettes.
She said she watched the man leave the store and get in a car, but the car did not leave the parking lot. Instead, a woman got out of the car and entered the store.
As she was waiting on the woman, the man re-entered the store. Then she felt something hit her in the back of the head.
"I fell backwards," she said. Jarrell said she looked up to see the man taking cash from the register. "I tried to get up. I remember hollering, `No,' and then something else hit me."
The couple grabbed less than $50 and ran from the store.
Deputy Dave Flynn of the Roanoke County Sheriff's Department testified that he stopped a speeding car minutes after the dispatcher put out the robbery call. Flynn said he saw that Dotson and Langhorne matched the robbers' descriptions.
by CNB